Ashmolean Museum

The UK’s oldest public museum, the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean was founded in 1683 and remains one of the world’s most famous institutions of art and archaeology.

Its holdings range from Egyptian mummies to contemporary art and include superb collections of Old Master drawings, antiquities, Anglo-Saxon treasures and modern Chinese paintings.

The museum is named after Elias Ashmole (1617-92), an antiquary who stipulated in his will that his collection of curiosities should be donated to the University of Oxford and placed in a custom-built museum.

Francesca Leoni, the Yousef Jameel Curator of Islamic Art at the Ashmolean Museum, will be the headlining speaker at the 2016 LAPADA Art and Antiques Fair taking place from September 13-18 in Berkeley Square, London.

WHILE &pound;50m was finally raised in February to keep the Duke of Sutherland's Titian painting Diana and Actaeon in the UK, an attempt to raise a further &pound;50m by 2012 for the Duke's Diana and Callisto is already underway.

UK: IT HAS just been announced exclusively to the Antiques Trade Gazette that the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum, which holds one of the most comprehensive collections of coins and medals in the world, has received a very substantial grant to update and rewrite the history of Greek coins from their invention (c.630BC) to Alexander the Great (d.323BC).